Monkfish Shawarma

This dish has so much flavor that you will find it hard to believe that it consist of only 5 ingredients;Monkfish, L’ekema, onions, oil and salt. Every ingredient plays a crucial role.Monkfish with its wonderful meatiness, L’ekema for bringing the Middle Eastern flavors we love so much,onions with their rich sweetness, oil to make sure it will be caramelized to perfection and salt to bring it all together.Just make sure you have fresh pitas, tahini and crisp pickles around.Read about how this dish came about here and about where we sourced the fish here.

3 big onions, thinly sliced

Salt

Canola oil (or any other flavorless oil)

·Salt the Monkfish and lightly oil it.

·Heat up a medium pan- until it is very hot.

·Place the monkfish in the pan and add a touch more oil.

·Let it brown nicely and then turn it on its side and let brown again. Keep going until its nicely browned from all sides.(it doesn’t need to be fully cooked inside as we will continue cooking it in the next stage)

·Let cool, preferably on a cooling rack.

·While the fish is cooling down, add the sliced onions to the very hot pan, add salt but no oil. Spread the onions all over the pan to create one even layer. Let it char and then give it a quick mix using a wooden spoon. Add a bit of oil and let it continue to cook and caramelize but still retain some crunch. Remove from the pan and set aside. (Make sure you don’t overcrowd the pan with the onions and repeat this process if needed 2-3 times.)

·Using a sharp knife, slice the monkfish to bite size slices but remember that monkfish is pretty crumbly and flaky, so it probably won’t be perfect slices…which is totally fine!!!

·In a bowl, mix the caramelized onions, the Monkfish pieces and the L'ekama. Make sure your pan is clean and heat it up again to a very high heat. Add 1 tbsp. of oil followed by the mixture. Stir around until all the flavors come together. At this stage, taste for salt and add if needed.